TAM33 Poetry Submissions (PRINT)
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Formatting: Please send us up to three poems in one document totaling five or fewer pages. Poems that contain visuals or art are welcome as long as you own the copyrights. We may accept poems without accepting the art. Please use fonts like Times New Roman/Calibri/Arial, 12pt., 1 inch margins. INCLUDE page numbers at the top of your manuscript. DO NOT INCLUDE your name/identifiers in your manuscript. If the unique format of your submission is critical to the piece, please feel free to keep your unique formatting.
Theme: Oasis–
Oasis is defined in Merriam Webster as the following:
- a fertile or green area in an arid region (such as a desert)
- something that provides refuge, relief, or pleasant contrast
For Thin Air Magazine’s upcoming issue, we seek to expand upon this notion.
In a turbulent, and at times seemingly desolate world, what is your oasis? Where do you seek shelter, or find comfort? What spaces fill, sustain, and save you? Is your oasis the physical body, spiritual self, home, community, or another source? How does one create sanctuary in the desert of the world?
Alternatively, we consider the conditions that are required to produce the oasis, and subsequently, what surrounds it.
For there to be an oasis, there must first exist a desert. An oasis can only exist when it is surrounded by, or contrasted by, a severe lack of something crucial to survival. What does it mean to be surrounded by a landscape of hostility, scarcity, or exclusion? In other words, what is your desert, and what drives you to find your oasis? Hunger? Thirst? Reprieve? Or is it something else entirely?
With this in mind, we wonder what else the oasis can represent.
What if the oasis can be a form of resistance? We think of the various forms of sanctuaries that are created in the midst of violence, fear, and the ever escalating political tensions: what oases have you noticed forming in the face of danger, desolation, and inaccessibility?
As creatives, we know that writing may even serve as an oasis and constant. In your creative, safe, and bold spaces, we encourage you to write all that you feel, see, and know of these oasis possibilities.
Aesthetic Statement: At Thin Air Magazine, we seek poetry that opens up new experiences we can empathize with, a thread of connection that pulls you in. We applaud artists unafraid to dive into painful memories and showcase how we grow as humans. For issue 33, we’re interested in poetry that highlights the contrast between abundance and desolation; safety and danger; resistance and oppression. What can be an oasis, or alternatively, the mirage? What is sanctuary in a world of scarcity?
Our upcoming theme, Systems, explores the impacts of our systems, and how those may reflect on us, our bodies, our relationships, our environment, our pasts, our futures. We believe poetry is a love language and a dagger that holds clarity, relatability, a playful spirit, and tackles feelings of what is hardest to put into words.
Submission Deadline: This year’s print issue deadline is 10/17/26. We have rolling submissions open right now. Reading of submissions begins in August every year and runs until the deadline.
Reminders: In addition to these guidelines, please read our General Submission Guidelines. We only consider unpublished work. Please do not submit material previously published in anthologies, chapbooks, online, or on personal websites (including FB, Twitter/X, Insta, Flickr, blogs, etc.). Simultaneous submissions are encouraged, but let us know immediately if a submission has been accepted elsewhere.